Five Week War
The Five-Week War was a critical event in the history of Tomsim, both the city and the nation. Background The Five-Week War was the culmination of a multi-sided conflict between the six trading families that occupied the plains on the western side of the Landspine mountains. Two of these families, the Buckmers and the Cottonridges, occupied large settlements on the River Po, which were essential for the other four families in order to efficiently move their goods. Three of these families, the Dyebards, the Ravensmiths and the Rottmores, were primarily herders and farmers, while the fourth, the Newmanns, were blacksmiths, foundry owners and budding industrialists. Following a personal issue between the Buckmers and the Cottonridges, both families announced that anyone who traded with the other family would be forbidden from trading with them, compelling the other families to choose sides. This became known as the Buckmer-Cottonridge Edict. The Dyebards and Ravensmiths sided with the Buckmers, and the Rottmores and Newmanns with the Cottonridges. It is worth noting that each of these large trading houses included dozens of smaller family groups within the title, and especially with the farming families there was a very large overlap between them. This caused a great deal of tension between the Rottmores and their nearest neighbours, the Ravensmiths. Skirmishing The first conflicts of what would become the Five-Week War took place in and around the village of Hoscomb Hill, a market town particularly noted as a centre of the mutton trade. Both Rottmores and Ravensmiths sold mutton through Hoscomb Hill, and it was in the marketplace where the first fights broke out. It is recorded that the cause of the tension was a market trader who bought from both families, and the Ravensmiths accused him of breaking the Buckmer-Cottonridge Edict. Rottmore partisans defended the merchant, and Ravensmith supporters ambushed them as they left Hoscomb Hill, stealing their packs and beating one man quite severely. No lives were lost in this initial conflict, but a great deal of bad blood was created. Insulted by the Ravensmith tactics, the Rottmore partisans starting staging sneak attacks on remote Ravensmith shepherds, stealing sheep and often kidnapping the shepherds, releasing them high in the hills and requiring therefore a long walk home. Outraged, the Ravensmiths hired guards to defend their flocks, and, one warm summer's night, intercepted a Rottmore raiding party and killed six of them. The loss of life was severe enough, but one of the dead was Henry Rottmore, a member of one of the cadet branches of the family, but still a bearer of the Rottmore name. This death, not merely of a partisan but of a child of the blood, outraged the Rottmores, and they called upon their allies to avenge them of the Ravensmiths. Betrayal at Saunder's Hill The Ravensmiths agreed to negotiate reparations with the Rottmores, and called them to Saunder's Hill, a small summit on the border of Buckmer and Cottonridge territory. In accordance with the cultural standards of the time, both sides sent seven men, clad in armour and carrying shields, but with no weapons. However, the Ravensmiths, convinced that the Rottmores were planning revenge for the death of Henry Rottmore, concealed a small party of armed soldiers in a copse near the summit of Saunder's Hill. In a tragic misunderstanding, during the discussion, one of the Ravensmiths accidentally gave the signal to attack, and all seven Rottmores were killed. War of Manoeuvre Such an act could not be permitted to go unanswered. The "Southern Alliance" of Cottonridge, Rottmore and Newmann clans sent messengers to the "Northern Alliance" of Buckmers, Dyebards and Ravensmiths, informing them that a state of war existed between them and would not cease until "sufficient penalties" had been applied. At once, both sides equipped and deployed armies of light infantry, principally spearmen and crossbowmen, although the Dyebards were able to field a single company of pikemen. Neither army was sufficient to overcome the other, and the threat of bandits on the plains and kobolds from the mountains meant that the towns and villages were sufficiently defended to render any assault impracticable. What emerged was a war of manoeuvre, each side attempting to place the other in a vulnerable position. First, the Northern Army attempted to pin the Southern Army against the river, preventing their retreat and reducing their freedom of movement, allowing Northern skirmishing attacks to pick off vulnerable formations. The Southern Army responded by falling back by night over the fords at Séchault, forcing the Northern Army to attack over the fords, on a frontage of less than a hundred feet. Rather than carry through the assault, the Northern Army left a garrison force and fell back out of sight, intending to either lure the Southern Army into an impetuous assault or buy time to march their own army across the bridges at Aussonce. The Southerners, realising the vulnerability of the Aussonce bridges, instead moved north at a rapid march, entrenching themselves in the ruins of an old fort atop Mount Houdilcourt. Determined not to make a desperate assault on the impenetrable defences of the fort at Houdilcourt, the Northerners instead concealed themselves within the village of San Giacomo, sending soldiers disguised as porters past the base of Houdilcourt in an attempt to lure the Southern Army out of its defences. Rather than fall for so obvious a ploy, the Southerners concocted their own strategy. Leaving sufficient soldier in Houdilcourt to deceive the Northerners, the bulk of the Southern Army flanked to the west, entrenching themselves within Sottocroda, a small hamlet situated on a strategically vital crossroads. Forced to respond to this move when a supply convoy travelling through Sottocroda was plundered, the Northerners moved swiftly south across the bridges at Aussonce and laid siege to the Newmann-allied fortified town of Meduno. The investment of the city was carefully planned, intended to look deeply entrenched while actually allowing the Northerners sufficient space to pull out, lest they be pinned between the town and the Southern Army. It was at this point that Emmanuel Philibert-Cottonridge, commander of the Southern Army, appears to have run out of patience with the slow dance and counter-dance of this phase of the war. In a letter to his bitter rival, Louis de Boufflers-Buckmer, he says: "The past three weeks have been of the most unpleasant nature, and calls question upon your character and the moral fibre of the forces you command. I and my men invited you to undertake fair battle in the open field before the hill of Houdilcourt on the seventh inst., and yet you instead chose duplicity in a futile effort to lure my men into an ambush. I warn you that your cause is flawed, and the destruction of your houses is a price you may yet be called to pay to make amends for your intolerable behaviour." Philibert-Cottonridge's reply is also preserved in the Tomsim National Archive. "Dear Sir, I have received your letter on the seventeenth inst, and found myself utterly unmoved by your feigned opprobrium. I point out that I and my men have been bivouacked in the field, not hiding in the luxuries of Sottocroda like a frightened child behind its mother's skirts. We have called upon thee to battle three times since your families decided to take up arms against ours, and three times you have feinted and retreated like the arrant coward and poltroon that you are. Three times we have offered up fair battle on the open field, that we might match arm with arm and see whom the gods shall favour, and three times the streak of yellow that runs through your army like a poisoned river has driven you into base and pigeon-hearted retreat. Were it not for the probable damage that the uncouth, undisciplined, impertinent, oafish and ungentlemanly rabble you are sufficiently deluded to call an army would do if allowed to ravage the countryside like the bandits they are, I would march my men back to their homes, for each town and village has its standing army of old men with billhooks and housewives with rolling pins, the mere sight of which would force your pusillanimous, gutless, craven caitiffs to run, whimpering and weeping, back to their homes. Behold I defy thee. We march this morning, the eighteenth, unto the fields before the Inn of Five Watchers. Meet us there for battle, or be revealed forever as a weakling, a coward, a lily-livered, fainthearted, spineless varlet, unworthy of high office or the respect of decent men." Boufflers-Buckmer's reply is not recorded, although accounts of his officers suggest that the apoplexy that assailed him upon reading Philibert-Cottonridge's missive required medical attention. Ambush and Counter-Ambush Apoplexy aside, however, Boufflers-Buckmer was no fool, and recognised Philibert-Cottonridge's message as a trap. In consultation with his officers, Boufflers-Buckmer sent advance units forward to establish the location of the Southern army and the deployment of their forces on the fields around the Five Watchers. These light skirmishers were uniformly set upon and either killed or captured by the Southern Army, who had divined Boufflers-Buckmer's most likely response to their commander's message. Determined not to allow any reconnaissance by the Northern Army, Philibert-Cottonridge deployed his own forces towards the most likely approach and intended to ambush his leading elements as they approached the road. However, Boufflers-Buckmer had divined that this would be his rival's intention, and deployed his own troops in flanking positions on the road, intending to sweep in and ambush the ambushers. In the end, both sides constructed plans that were too complex to survive, and a brutal melee broke out when opposing units came into contact half a mile from the intended ambush sites. This brief skirmish drew in other units, until a spontaneous and bloody battle was fought over three days outside the town of Merlara. Watching their armies collapse into chaos, and due to both of them seeking the vantage point offered by the steeple of the temple in Merlara, Boufflers-Buckmer and Philibert-Cottonridge came face-to-face in the small chapel, and agreed to call off their armies and settle things by champions. Battle of Champions Halting the battle proved more complex than either leader thought, and it was two days before the promised trial-by-champion could be carried out. Finally the field of battle was cleared, and the two champions took the field. Enrico Porro, the Northern Champion, was considered a master of the close-quarters fight, and was renowned as a brawler and wrestler beyond compare. His rival, however, was Gaston Alibert, perhaps the finest duelist and swordsman the Salle Baudry had ever produced. Accounts of the battle of champions remain a vital and living part of Tomsimite folk culture to this day, but the best-regarded is that of the noted diarist of the day, Charles Collignon the Awkward. While it loses something of rhyme and meter when translated into modern Common, it nevertheless represents the significance of this event in Tomsimite history. "Forth they came upon the field of battle, The duelist of the North The brawler of the South Gave each they the respect unto the other Drew they their weapons and saluted Full ten thousand stood beside Fierce there they did fight, Blood spilled upon the ground Parry, parry, thrust, thrust, Then the sword of Porro broke asunder Cast he aside the hilt thereof, Close to he stepped, his fists like hammers Alibert sought distance, but Porro was too close The sword of Alibert he took, he broke Fought they there like men Neither to surrender, neither to give up Until at last, as the sun set They fell and died together." The tragic deaths of both of their champions appears to have had an exceptional effect upon the leaders of the armies. An agreement to meet upon the dueling field for formal parley and peace negotiations in the morning was struck almost as soon as the battle ended. Parley The parley was acrimonious but deeply productive, and a peace agreement was hammered out with surprising speed. The treaty was predicated on a number of conditions, including something both sides argued for, the selection of a capital city. Both families clearly seemed to have believed that only their family seats were appropriate choices, and it was thought that this choice would allow an impartial force to choose between Southern and Northern interests. Aftermath In the event, however, the non-existent city of Tomsim was chosen, with a site in the middle of the river that divided north and south. This decision neatly undercut the tension between the two families, uniting them in opposition to the plan. It was that opposition, orchestrated by one of the finest political minds in history, that forced the establishment of the Tomsimite militia, and led to the formation of the city - and the nation - that we know today. Legacy The principal legacy of the Five-Week War is the annual festival of memorial, unusual in the style of memorials in that it is called "Carnivale" and consists of a week-long party of legendary excess and debauchery. The intention is to celebrate the peace and prosperity brought about by the founding of Tomsim the city. A large memorial to the fallen of the war is in the centre of the Old Town of Tomsim. Category:Wars